October 31, 2007

Survey on social media says...

AUSTIN, TX--Business owners, if you need to wait till acceptance rates hit a certain plateau
before adopting your own social media strategy, then I promise you
you're efforts will be doomed. Fact is, social media is growing so fast
and morphing so rapidly, that if you're company takes a "wait till next
year" approach, you'll be left behind and never be able to catch up.

Take for example a new survey by Jupiter released this last July that warns retailers away from social media campaigns. eCommerce Times quotes Jupiter's report

"The majority of online shoppers who have used social
and community sites while
researching and purchasing do not believe
that such sites affected their purchase decisions, and few online
shoppers said they spend incrementally more due to their use of social
and community sites."

Also quoted is Jupiter's the lead analyst for the report, Patty Freeman Evans, as saying

"Retailer[s] should take a pause from all the hype
they've heard about social networking and social media because those
sites are not something that's going to immediately drive incremental
sales for them."

If you take Jupiter as Gospel and forgo a social media campaign,
what will happen to your business if just say consumers begin to flock
to social media and your largest competitor has a year's jump on you
with their wikis, forums, blogs and user-generated content (UGC)?

IT professionals cite social media as the most trustworthy online source of information when making purchasing decisions

Executive-level decision-makers spend nearly 3.5 hours per week
consuming or participating in social media - the highest usage profile
of any IT audience

Nearly two-thirds of IT professionals surveyed say social media
content and user-generated tools have made for a more informed
purchasing decision; nearly three-quarters say such content and tools
have made their lives more efficient.

IT audiences now spend as much or more time consuming or
participating in social media as they do consuming editorial media or
vendor content.

What do the purchasing habits of IT geeks mean to you if say you're a maker of premium dog food?
(Attention Jim Kelly!) Consider that these geeks owned PCs while you
were still banging out forms in triplicate on an electric typewriter.
They were online as you bought your first Commodore 64. And now that
you're ordering just about everything on Amazon while listening to your
iPod, take a moment to consider who was there first. The geeks shall
inherit the earth not simply through usurping the popular kids. The
ultimate Revenge of the Nerds is that you and your customers grow a little more geekier every day.

Are you going to sit on your hands while your competitors adopt the Tao of the Geek and steal away your market share?

Here's some more findings about UGC that Jordan McCollum culled from a new survey from PR Week and Manning, Selvage & Lee:

43.4% of marketers will use UGC in the next year

42.3% have definitely allocated some portion of their budget to UGC

92.5% would consider turning to an Internet/new media specialist
for a “new media campaign,” and 47.7% would turn to them first (that’s
more than 2.5 times greater than the next choice, a PR agency).

46.6% think Internet/new media agencies do a very good or
excellent job measuring their effectiveness (second only to direct
marketing agencies).

Did you catch this figure -- 43.4% of marketers will use UGC in the next year? What percentage of these marketers are retailers, the survey didn't say. My advice is not to wait till next year to find out.

I'd also advise you to stop listening to surveys and start ramping up your social media campaign now.